1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a photographic fish eye lens system which has a field angle of more than 140.degree., particularly to an improved lens system having a very high resolution power at an aperture ratio of at least 1:4.2 and which can be applied to SLR-cameras.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Fish eye lens systems are known since 1932 (DRP. 620,538). Further suggestions have been made in the "Journal of the Optical Society of America" No.41 (1951), Page 1058-1059 and in the U.S. Pat. No. 3,331,653. These early fish eye lens systems were rather simple and the compensation of some of the aberrations was not sufficient or was even impossible. Particularly the lateral chromatic aberration was a problem which could not be solved. Therefore the resolution power of these lens systems was poor, even if they were used at small aperture ratios.
In the years following 1965 numerous fish eye lens systems of a higher performance have been designed, but the high number of lens elements is the common big disadvantage of these designs. They consist of 8 to 12 lens elements and they therefore are rather expensive and heavy (U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,515,462; 3,524,697; 3,597,049; 3,734,600; 3,741,630; 3,850,509; 4,009,943 and 4,256,373). Other disadvantages of some of these systems are the poor resolution power at large field angles and fully opened aperture stop, and--consequently--the decreasing brightness at the edges of the image, since the deviating light rays must be cut off by vignetting on the rims of the lens elements in order to achieve a sufficient sharpness of the image.